Amid the deadly chaos sweeping across Egypt, looters ransacked the archaeological museum in the town of Mallawi last week.

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Amid the deadly chaos sweeping across Egypt, looters ransacked the archaeological museum in the town of Mallawi last week." />
Amid the deadly chaos sweeping across Egypt, looters ransacked the archaeological museum in the town of Mallawi last week.">

Pictures: Looters Shatter Museum of Ancient Egyptian Treasures

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Pictures: Looters Shatter Museum of Ancient Egyptian Treasures

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Amid the deadly chaos that has erupted in Egypt, the country's cultural heritage took a hit last week when looters ransacked the archaeological museum in the town of Mallawi.

Located about 190 miles (300 kilometers) south of Cairo, the museum was opened in 1963 to showcase the finds from excavations at nearby sites.

"The museum contained irreplaceable artifacts, many not yet studied," says Salima Ikram, a professor of Egyptology at the American University in Cairo. "The looting leaves enormous gaps in our understanding of ancient Egyptian religious and funerary rites."

Housed in a modest, two-story building, the museum's galleries displayed a wide range of objects—animal mummies, votive statues, religious offerings, brightly painted wooden coffins, necklaces of stone beads, a ritual rattle known as a sistrum, funerary masks, amulets, statues from tombs, stone trays for sacred oils, jars that once held the internal organs of an Egyptian now long dead—all of which had survived in remarkably good condition for more than 2,000 years.

According to local news reports, looters—as yet unidentified—broke into the museum while supporters of recently deposed Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi were holding a sit-in protest in the museum's garden. From the 1,089 artifacts on exhibit, an estimated 1,050 were stolen.

After the looters had departed, gangs of what one source calls "local bad boys" entered the building and began to burn and smash what was left.

In the photo shown here, debris from the rampage surrounds large artifacts that were too bulky to haul off.

This incident is just the latest of countless attacks on Egypt's archaeological riches since the 2011 revolution.

During the protests in Cairo's Tahrir Square that ended the 30-year rule of President Hosni Mubarak, looters broke into the Egyptian Museum—home of one of the world's foremost archaeological collections—and made off with about 50 artifacts. Many are still missing.

The country's continuing turmoil has led to lax security at archaeological sites and storerooms throughout the country, leaving them vulnerable to attack. Reports of looting have surfaced everywhere from Abu Rawash and Abusir to El Hibeh and Luxor.

Looting is certainly not a new phenomenon in Egypt. It was as lucrative in antiquity as it is today. Almost as soon as the paint was dry in the tombs of the rich and powerful, robbers would break in and grab what wealth they could. Even the tomb of King Tut was a target. Experts believe looters got in twice, stuffed their pockets, and left jewelry strewn along the exit passage as they fled from guards.

What's different today is the scale—selling antiquities is a global business, and it's booming.

To help warn dealers and collectors away from the Mallawi loot, Egyptologists are turning to social media to publicize the objects as quickly as possible. A group on Facebook called Egypt's Heritage Task Force is leading the effort. Their page includes a growing collection of artifact photos sent in by people who visited the museum in recent years. As of this morning it showed almost 900 images.

Meanwhile, Egyptian officials have catalogued what has been lost and sent the list to UNESCO for publication in Arabic and English on its website. They are now salvaging what they can from the ruined galleries and encouraging looters to return priceless treasures that testify to the glory of ancient Egypt and the infinite possibilities of human creativity.

—A.R. Williams

Photograph by Roger Anis, El Shorouk/AP

Flash of Gold

A wooden sarcophagus with a gilded face, likely from the Ptolemaic period (305 to 30 B.C.), was toppled in the melee but seems to have suffered little damage.

Photograph from Rouge/Demotix

Grave Words

Hieroglyphic texts cover the side of a wooden coffin left behind by the looters. This artifact likely was excavated at Tuna el-Gebel, an ancient pilgrimage site that includes a private cemetery from the Greco-Roman period (305 B.C. to A.D. 300). Guards have reportedly been posted there to prevent looting of the tombs.

Photograph by Roger Anis, El Shorouk/AP

Utter Ruin

This ravaged gallery once held statues and mummies of baboons. In the ancient Egyptian pantheon, those creatures represented Thoth, the god of writing and knowledge.

Photograph from Rouge/Demotix

The Way Things Were

Before the attack, antique display cases of polished wood and glass filled this spacious gallery.

Photograph courtesy Francois Tonic

Abducted Princess

A small stone statue of King Akhenaten's daughter (18th dynasty, 1352-1336 B.C.) was among the stolen artifacts.

Photograph by Alain Guilleux

Sacred Statue

This graceful, gilded ibis of wood and bronze stood in a display case before the looting. Dating from the Greco-Roman era (300 B.C. to A.D. 300), it was a votive object that a pilgrim probably left reverently at Tuna el-Gebel. Like baboons, ibises symbolized the god Thoth.

Photograph by Richard Barnes, National Geographic

Votive Objects

Intricately wrapped in linen, these mummies of sacred birds came from the catacombs of Tuna el-Gebel. Millions of ibises and their eggs, mostly from the Greco-Roman period (305 B.C. to 300 A.D.), once filled walls of niches in the underground galleries that stretch for more than a mile and a half (three kilometers).

Photograph by Alain Guilleux

Portrait of the Dead

A mask of painted plaster once lay atop a mummy from the Roman period (first or second century A.D.)

Photograph by Salima Ikram, the American University in Cairo

Holy Family

This statuette depicts the goddess Isis holding her baby son Horus, the falcon god often associated with the pharaoh.

Photograph by Alain Guilleux

Face Vase

A ceramic vessel from Tuna el-Gebel bears the grotesque features of the god Bes, often considered a protector of families. Ibis eggs were discovered inside the vase, which dates to the dynasty of Cleopatra's family (305 to 30 B.C.).

Photograph by Salima Ikram, the American University in Cairo

Religious Relics

Eggs from sacred ibises nestle in a basket made of papyrus reeds. The ibises were likely bred at Tuna el-Gebel to be mummified and sold to pilgrims as votive offerings.

Photograph by Salima Ikram, the American University in Cairo

Devoted Couple

A stone statue from the time of the great Egyptian pyramids (fifth dynasty, 2494-2345 B.C.) shows a man and his wife. It was likely placed in their tomb at the cemetery of Tehna as a focal point for the family, friends, and neighbors who visited to perform rituals of devotion.

Photograph by Salima Ikram, the American University in Cairo

Broken Marriage

Marauding teenagers smashed this statue of the married couple from Tehna. "It was fine for almost 5,000 years until that moment," says Salima Ikram, a former National Geographic research grantee. Looters probably left it behind because it was too heavy to carry.

Photograph from Rouge/Demotix

The Cleanup

Volunteers and personnel from the Ministry of Antiquities hurry to move heavy objects from the Mallawi Museum before protests begin to roil in the streets once again.

Archaeological officials have offered a small reward for the return of looted artifacts, no questions asked. So far about 15 pieces have surfaced. Three pieces of papyrus bearing Demotic texts were left at the museum door just this morning.

Everything is now being sent to a secure storehouse in nearby al-Ashmounein. There, conservators are beginning to assess the damage before they undertake the long, painstaking process of restoration.